The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-09-30


straits that they would quit business to
morrow il it were not for the wreck ant
ruin of others. When people tell me n,
what a ruinously low price they purchased
I'M article, it gives me more dismay thar
satisfaction. know it means the bank
ruptcy and defalcation of men in many
departments. The men who toll with
the brain need full as much sympathy as
those who toll with the hands. All bust
ness life is struck through with suspicion,
and panics are only the result OF want OF
confidence.
The pressure to do wrong is all the
stronger from the fact that in our day
the large business houses are swallowing
up the smaller, the whales dining on blue
fish and minnows The large houses
undersell the small ones because they can
afford it. They can afford to make
nothing, OF actually lose. on some styles
of goods, assured they can make it up on
others. So, n great dry goods house goes
outside of its regular line and sells books
at cost or less than cost, and that swamps
the booksellers: or, the dry goods house
sells bric-a-brac at lowest figure, that
swamps the small dealer in bric-a-brac.
And the same thing goes on in other
styles of merchandise, and the conse-
quence is that all along the business
streets of all our cities there are mer-
chants of small capital who are in terrific
struggle to keep their heads above
water. The Cunarders run down the
Newfoundland fishing smacks. This is
nothing against the man who has the big
store, for every man has as large store
and as great business as he can manage.
To feel right and do right under all this
pressure requires martyr grace, requires
divine support, requires celestial re-en-
forcement. Yet there are tens of thou
sands of such men getting splendidly
through. They see others going up and
themselves going down, but they keep
their patience and their courage and their
Christian consistency, and after while
their turn of success will come. The
owners of the big business will die and
their boys Will get possession Of the bust
ness, and with cigar in their mouth and
full to the chin with the best liquor and
behind pair of spanking bays they will
pass everything on the turnpike road to
temporal and eternal perdition. Then
the business will break up and the smaller
dealers will have fair opportunity. Or
the spirit of contentment and right feel
ing will take possession of the large firm,
as recently in the case of the great house of
A. A. Low & Co., and the firm will say:
1--WE have money enough for all our
needs and the needs of our children; now,
let us dissolve business and make way for
other men in the same line." Instead of
being startled at solitary instance of
magnanimity, as in the case just men,
toned, it will become common thing.
I know of scores of great business houses
that have had their opportunity of vast
accumulation and who ought to quit.
But perhaps for all the days of this gen.
Grafton the struggle Of small houses to
keep above under the overshadowing
pressure of great houses will con-
tinue; therefore, taking things as they
are, you will be wise to preserve your
equilibrium and your honesty and your
faith, and throw over all the counters
and shelves and barrels and hogsheads
and cotton bales and rice casks the meas
uring line of divine right "And the
Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest
CllOu! dIlu Sdlu, "A plullD Ill.,
| In the same way we need to measure
FOUR theologies. All sorts of religions are
putting forth their pretensions. Some
have spiritualistic religion, and their
chief work is with ghosts, and others a
religion of political economy proposing to
put an end to human misery by new
style of taxation, and there is humani-
tartan religion that looks after the body
of men and lets the soul look after itself,
and there is legislative religion that
proposes to rectify all wrongs by enact
ment of better laws, and there is an
aesthetic religion that by rules Of exquisite
taste would lift the heart out of its de-
formities. and religions of all sorts, relig-
ions by the peck, religions by the square
foot, and religions by the ton-all of
the heart away from the only religion
that will ever effect anything for the hui
man race, and that is the straight up and
down religion written in the book, which
begins with Genesis and ends with Rev
elation, the religion of the skies, the old
religion, the God given religion, the ever
lasting religion, which says: Love God
above all and your neighbor as yourself.
All religions but this one begin at the
wrong end and in the wrong place. The
Bible religion demands that we first get
right with God. 1t begins at the top and
measures down, while the other religions
begin at the bottom and try to measure
up. They stand at the foot of the wall,
up to their knees in the mud of human
theory and speculation, and have plum
met and a string tied fast to it. And
they throw the plummet this way, ane
break head there, and thow the plum
met another way, and break head there.
and then they throw it up, and it comes
down upon their own pate. Fools! Why
will you stand at the foot of the wall
measuring up when you ought to stand
at the top measuring down? A few
days ago l was in the country, thirsty
after long walk. And / came in, and
my child was blowing soap bubbles, and
they rolled out of the cup, blue and gold
and green and sparkling and beautiful
and orbicular, and in SO small space l
never saw more splendor concentrated.
But she blew once too often, and all the
GLORY vanished into sudS Then I turned